Sunday, April 4, 2010

More Sound Science

It always interests me to go to assorted websites and read the arguments between pro-access and anti- access folks. Some of the posts there are priceless and do a wondrous job of outlining just how ignorant of this Seashore and biased some of these folks can be. Of course, in prospective, they get their information from the spin doctors at DOW, Audubon and SELC whose collection of lies, half truths and misrepresentations abound. NPS is no stranger to these tactics either though they tend to be a bit more restrained, sometimes.
Yesterday at 8am I was in yet another meeting that involves digesting and responding to the NPS 810 page Draft Environmental Impact Statement. This thing is short on common sense, long on horse poop, and chock full of graphs of one sort or another. Reminds me of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant. If I hadn't cooked my brain reading American Oystercatcher studies this day I could tell you what page to look for as I discuss a particular pie chart that an astute member of our crew discovered. I'll have to come back and do that later.

The NPS does fly overs on the holidays, spring, summer and fall, the purpose of which is to count vehicles on the Seashore. In this particular pie chart, the numbers for the 4Th of July are shown with a comment made about observations. The comment claims something to the effect that most of the vehicles they sighted were seen at Bodie Island Spit, Cape Point and I believe Hatteras Inlet.
HUH? All of these areas were closed to ALL human activity! No trucks, no pedestrians, nothing except NPS observers. Either somebody is so full of (  ) you could smell them a mile away or NPS had one heck of a party. The scary part is, I wouldn't know which way to bet, not anymore.

Tight Lines,

Wheat

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